


Writing Down the Bones

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Partly Season 13 Compliant, Season 12 compliant, Short One Shot, Team Free Will, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 17:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Dean always had a plan for retirement.





	Writing Down the Bones

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno. This has actually been in my head for about a year, and it finally spilled out. I'm not totally in love with it, but here it is. Also I imagined it this way because Jack didn't exist yet, and I am not sure what Jack would be doing in this scenario. I'm still getting used to Jack.

When they retired, Dean thought, he had always wanted to take Castiel to the ocean. It wasn’t even that he had any _designs_ , or maybe he did, but he didn’t acknowledge them, in true Dean fashion--fine form.

They would bring Sam, of course they would bring Sam, and maybe whoever Sam had on his arm then, didn’t matter who. (Leaving Amelia, or not going back for her, had been Sam’s choice, and it’s hard being a Winchester and trying to connect to anyone outside of their weird lives and private hells but someone like Dean could dream _sometimes_ , right?) 

Dean would take Castiel to the ocean, and Sam, and he would carry a pen and paper in his pockets, and he would try to take after Chuck. Chuck Shurley the writer, not God. Dean was too tired to be God. 

He would write, and he would let Sam make the coffee, and Sam would jog and in the afternoons Dean would have time to make burgers he learned how to grill himself. Or other simple things. Dean wasn’t picky. Not about that, not the way he was about the car.

He’d have to take his baby out on regular drives, too, so maybe they wouldn’t live terribly close to the ocean, exactly, just close enough that they could get there when they needed to. It was ironic how few times Dean had seen the ocean given how often they crossed the country.

Sam was skeptical, but that only served to spur Dean on. Castiel was skeptical, but that was because Cas didn’t know how freaking awesome the ocean was to begin with. Sure, he could know things about earth, but his learning curve was still ongoing, astronomically slow.

In the end they did settle by the water, a lake, and they went to the ocean sometimes, when they could, too.

The water reminded Dean of so many things. And it helped him write. 

He did write, monster movies on paper, one notebook page at a time. When he filled his first notebook he grinned up at Sammy. “It’s like journaling, but you make it up.”

Sam shrugged. He kinda didn’t get why Dean would go down this road, but he passed close to his brother and tapped him on the shoulder. “Great, Dean. I think that’s great.”

“This one is about tentacles,” Dean said. “A tentacle monster.”

“Like that time--”

“No. Not like that time.”

“But kinda like that time, I bet,” Sam said anyway.

“Okay. Maybe a little like that time.”

Castiel came in from the kitchen, holding a piece of fruit and eyeing it quizzically. “Do people really eat this?” he asked. “By the way, Sam wins.”

“Who asked you?” Dean shot back. “I thought you were on my team.”

“I am on Team Free Will, Dean. Sam is also on this team.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

They watched marathons of the Stooges at night and Dean tried to decide which of the three of them was which. Then he’d turn that into horror, too, though really, the one he was most proud of was the one about the tentacle monster.

Sam walked around a little bemused at how the tables could turn if for five seconds Dean got to relax. It wasn’t that he begrudged Dean. This was just a new side of his brother he hadn’t expected to see.

Notebooks and legal pads were stacked in Dean’s room, and the first time Dean got to the end of something he thought of sending to a publisher, he bought the _fancy_ whiskey and brought it home, plunking it down in front of Sam.

“I finished it, Sammy.”

“Finished what?”

“The book.”

“You wrote a book?”

“The Adventures of Sam the Oblivious. You know, it’s almost like you don’t really know me.”

“Sometimes I think I don’t.”

“Sometimes you don’t.”

A beat.

Dean shrugged. “Anyway, it’s done.”

“What’s it about?”

“Cars. Monsters. You know. I guess at some point Chuck stopped writing, so...?”

“You never told me you were picking up the slack.”

“Well. Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“For fun though. No God complex.”

“I gotcha.”

Then it was published, and they both stared bemusedly at the proof.

So. Writing. It was a thing Winchesters did now, by the water in a little place that wasn’t even the bunker.

Life definitely could be strange.


End file.
